Swimming With The Sharks
by EnglandBabe1997
Summary: Fritton's don't just swim with the sharks, they are the sharks. Only he doesn't know how he ended up with a drip like Annabelle Fritton for his daughter.
1. Chapter 1

**This is going to be a two-shot, but I don't know when x please read and review to tell me what you think x**

The Fritton family isn't like others.

They lie and cheat and steal from each other, stab each other in the back. Most families have friendly banter, inside jokes, the occasional argument and maybe the sibling will push each other down the stairs.

The Fritton family pushes them down the stairs and out of the window. They were the sharks in the water, the top of the food chain. Only they fought for that dominance with each other, even within the family.

Carnaby vividly remembers trying to push Camilla out of their window when they were both about seven. She'd tried to do it to him when they were five.

That was how it went really, Camilla did something and then Carnaby did it afterwards.

As children the pair of them had always been fighting, always making underhanded tricks and jokes to get the other in trouble. They had never cared about each other, not really, and loved to do nothing more than antagonise the other, infuriate them into doing something stupid, the show a weak point.

When they'd turned nineteen Camilla had left for university and Carnaby had left to get a dodgy job off a friend.

This would set the trend for the kind of life both of them would have.

Camilla went off the university and studied and painted, sending their parents home pictures that they put up in their lounge. Carnaby avoided their home as much as possible, only dropping by for the family functions they were all forced in to.

Camilla had become headmistress of some school somewhere, a grand achievement for someone as young as she, only the school was claimed to be appalling, and having read some of the reports Carnaby had to agree. Camilla had already risen to the top of her food chain, and it looked like a pretty Fritton place to be in.

Carnaby certainly would've enjoyed being in that kind of school when he was a student. it would've been far more fun.

When he was twenty six Carnaby had met Evelyn, and married her as quickly as he could.

The fact that she was pregnant had nothing to do with it. Of course.

And Evelyn had died in an accident that was mostly natural when she'd begun to threaten Carnaby with divorce before Annabelle was even two. He supposed he could understand - he had never particularly wanted to marry her, but had had to for the sake of his reputation and social standing. As such they'd never spent much time together, Evelyn preferring to stay with Annabelle, Carnaby leaving off on one of his schemes and dodgy ideas.

Carnaby had raised Annabelle by himself after she was died. Only he hadn't really - he'd hired nannies and governesses and made a point to avoid Annabelle any time she was behaving like a normal child, because he couldn't handle the screaming and shouting and crying.

He'd never made that good a child.

Why would he want to raise one for himself?

(To be honest he'd never made that good and adult either.)

But Annabelle had been raised good and proper. She's had excellent teachers and gone to good schools and behaved well.

And she was a complete drip.

Annabelle was nothing like the rest of the Fritton's. During her childhood there was not a whisper of a prank or a hint of a selfish streak. Only this good and innocent vibe that would be almost endearing if it wasn't so damn irritating.

He was almost glad of the opportunity to send her off to St Trinian's - it was a good deal for him, and an even better one for her.

She would have to grow up at St Trinian's, or else be eaten alive by the sharks.

Any good Fritton would learn to swim.

He would help by throwing her in a the deep end.

After all, wasn't that the best way to start?

It was the Fritton way after all. They didn't believe in easy starts, nor did they believe in weakness. Annabelle would learn to swim or else she would damn well drown.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry for the wait on this - I've been really busy x I should have been able to post this days ago :**

She rang him a few times after he left her at St Trinian's. This was almost always inconvenient, as since he'd left her at the school he'd spent most of his time partying as he hadn't since Annabelle had been born.

It was extremely annoying.

She needed to grow up and learn how to take care of herself. He knew that hiring that governess had been bad - the governess had babied her. He'd certainly never been babied, and neither had Camilla, and both of them had turned out fine.

They'd turned out like proper Fritton's, not this weak slip of a daughter who was afraid to say boo to a goose.

He was ashamed of her.

But Camilla wasn't.

And that was something he couldn't figure out. Camilla seemed to believe that Annabelle was hiding a true Fritton girl inside of her, and maybe she was right. It was just that Carnaby wasn't all that bothered about finding it. He had much better things to do with his time.

Like make the deal on the black market on the purchase of the Girl With The Pearl Earring.

And buying out St Trinian's. He was far too busy to call his daughter! Maybe at the end of the year. Ask her if she wanted to stay with her Aunt over the summer, purely as a learning opportunity of course.

And then there had been that whole deal with the Girl With The Pearl Earring and the German art dealer who didn't know where in Germany he hailed from.

And Carnaby had ended up paying an awful lot of money for one of his sister's fakes - good though it was. It was still a _fake_.

And it wasn't like he could complain to the police. He'd 'bought' it on the black market after all, the day after it had been stolen.

That night he'd screamed like a man possessed, raged and fumed. He wondered at his daughter's involvement - by all accounts she appeared to be growing out of her shell into normality, even if he didn't think she'd ever be a true Fritton. St Trinian's had been good for her - but hopefully not _too_ good.

No, his Annabelle would never do something like this he told himself.

Carnaby believed himself until the next day when Annabelle was shown on television with a group of other girls from that school, looking more like a Fritton that she ever had before. She had looked almost dangerous and predatory. She had known what she wanted and how to get it - and in this case it was a big fat check. And she'd gotten it.

Furious though he was, he applauded their cunning, even of only in the deepest levels of his mind and not that he'd ever admit it aloud, or even consciously. It seemed the sink or swim mode had worked. She had more than learnt to swim, she had learnt how to fly over the water without touching it in the first place.

Annabelle was more than one of the sharks now, she was leader of the pack.


End file.
